MEDITATION RETREAT WITH YOGA PONSONBY, AUCKLAND

Tranquility and Insight
Meditation Retreat (non-residential) with Susan Allen
Dates: 7-11 May 2025 (see below for times)

Join us for this urban meditation and yoga retreat in Ponsonby, central Auckland. Meditation is a journey of discovery; this practice cultivates understanding of how your mind works and offers the possibility of flourishing in this world.
This is a non-residential retreat where participants have the flexibility to find their own accommodation, coming together each day for learning and practice.

– The practice –

Set a new direction for yourself with 5 days of inspiring practice

This meditation retreat offers 5 days of meditation practice and discussion in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. This is an opportunity for you to begin a daily meditation practice for life or to advance an existing practice with fresh ideas and strategies. These meditation retreats are usually mixed level from beginners to more advanced practitioners, all are welcome.

The retreat is hosted by one of NZ’s most experienced meditation and yoga teachers, Susan Allen. Suze has been teaching meditation for 22 years and has an authentic passion for sharing this transformative practice with others. 

Meditation will change your life, it is a tool for developing calmness of mind, a poise of character.  Through the practice we gain insight into how our mind works; we find a path that facilitates the flourishing of all mental traits

What will we be practicing?

The meditation practices and discussion will have a particular emphasis on cultivating quietness and steadiness in the mind as well as cultivating insights that bring freedom and peace of mind into our everyday life. Tibetan Buddhist meditations value an intelligent and structured approach to investigating ‘What is the mind?’ and consequently frame meditation in a practical and methodical way. You can read more detail about the meditation approach here. The meditation practices will be taken from the Mahamudra and Dzogchen Tibetan Buddhist tradition. These will be presented in a secular, practical fashion.

The primary offerings on this retreat are: 
1. Attention training practices specifically to quieten the busy mind; this cultivates tranquility and stability of mind. 
2. Insight practices that liberate the mind from its conditioned patterns. This causes our habitual reactive emotional states to decline, we feel more connected to others and we begin to operate more from a spacious, ease-ful awareness rather than from the obsession with thought.
3. Quiet time to nourish and gain inspiration on a path forward. 

The mind is the ground for suffering or for liberation.

The mind absolutely and completely shapes our experience of life. In this retreat we will explore how the mind fabricates our experience. To explain this, imagine this scene –
Someone criticises you for not completing a task the way they would have done it. If you are in a buoyant and happy mood you shrug off their criticism and don’t let it bother you. If you are tired and grumpy then you might really react to their criticism, taking it to heart, and getting caught up in some story about how people don’t like you or value you, or whatever your version of the story is you often fall into. This is an example of how the mind constructs, or we say fabricates, our experience. Our happiness depends on how the mind reacts to our experience. Once we understand that every moment of our life is dependent on how the mind fabricates our experience, the path, the way out of this bondage becomes visible.

– Dates and Pricing –

Dates

7-11 May, 2025
Day 1: Weds. 7th May, 5.30 – 8.30pm
Day 2-5: Thurs. 8th, Fri. 9th, Sat. 10th, Sun. 11th June, 9am – 6pm

Location

The Life Centre – 88 Jervois Rd, Ponsonby, Auckland, NZ

Pricing

Tuition per person for the 5 day program –
Early Bird price, available until 1st March 2025 – $950
Full price, if registered after 1st March 2025 – $1,080
Payment is required to register a spot. A payment plan is available on request. 

What is included? This is a non-residential retreat. Participants need to find their own accommodation locally. Price includes all meditation and yoga instruction as well as audio recordings of selected practices to take away. Tea, coffee and refreshments are included. Participants are welcome to bring their own lunch and stay at the centre during the breaks. There are many local cafes, parks and beaches within walking distance to enjoy in the breaks.

This is a non-residential retreat. The first evening is an introduction and then for the four full days participants will arrive for a 9am start each day and finish at 5pm. The days will consist of 4 meditation practice and discussion sessions with several breaks in between. There will be yoga in the morning for those that wish to participate. Light refreshments will be given in the breaks (no meals provided). This style of meditation retreat is to make it more accessible price wise and flexibility wise for those that cannot take a longer period of time away from home.

Another advantage of a non-residential retreat is we are working with the habitual state of mind and the familiar experience of daily life to create insight. It is not necessary to create an artificial, silent environment to do this.

Booking process terms and conditions
1. The full tuition fee is required to make a booking. Early bird pricing available up until 1st March, 2025.
2. Register by clicking the ‘Register Now’ button to pay with a credit card. If you would prefer to pay by bank transfer you can contact us to do so.
3. If you cancel your booking before 1st April, 2025 your payment minus a non-refundable $200 admin deposit will be refunded.
4. If you cancel your booking, for whatever reason, including sickness, after 1st April, 2025 no refund will be given but you are able to transfer it to someone else of your finding, or someone on the waitlist if there is one.

Meditation will change your life forever.
Learning this practice is one of life's greatest gifts to yourself

Susan Allen who is leading the retreat is the founder of Yoga Ground, studios in Auckland and Wanaka, New Zealand. She also owns Entering the Stream, a world class online yoga and meditation platform and The Yoga Transition, a yoga teacher mentorship business. Read more about Susan here.